Anne Barbour

A DANGEROUS CHARADE

Anne Barbour

Chapter 1

“Dammit, Toby, throw them a couple of shillings and let’s be on our way.” The long-limbed gentleman, having momentarily vented his irritation, settled back in his curricle and waited as his tiger, a tousle-haired elf of some fourteen summers, rummaged in a capacious pocket for the specified gratuity.

“Good God,” continued the gentleman, his light brown eyes narrowing in bored exasperation, “that infernal bleating is enough to make one avoid the city of Bath altogether. I thought the custom of tootling fanfares for every approaching visitor had died an unmourned death long ago. Listen to that fellow! He ought to be tarred and feathered and stuffed into his own trumpet!”

As the curricle sped away, the tiger glanced over his shoulder at the small group of musicians crouched near the tollgate that marked the entrance to Bath on the London Road. An uncertain shower of notes burst from them like spray from a leaking fireman’s pipe in hopeful welcome for another equipage just rattling into the city. Toby shrugged his slight shoulders as the sound faded in the distance behind them. “Everybody’s got t’earn a livin’ someways, me lord.”

Anthony Brent, the Earl of Marchford, bent a frown on the boy, and, easing his vehicle through the increasingly congested streets of the city, turned to his own thoughts. Yes, indeed, he reflected morosely, everyone had to earn a living; unfortunately, some chose to earn it at the expense of others. Swerving to avoid a cart headed for market, he cursed again the summons that had wrenched him from his pleasant existence in London. He did not want to be here. He wished to be amid the familiar bustle of the city, ensconced in his comfortable life, and he most especially wished to be with the woman whose hand he had planned to ask of her father this week.

He could feel the letter that had brought him here crackling in his waistcoat pocket.

“Tony, you must do something!” had been the opening line of a missive crossed and recrossed until it was well nigh illegible. The earl sighed. How many times had he heard those words from Eleanor? She was a good sort, as sisters went, but she seemed to regard him as a combination barrister, wizard, and general dogsbody.

However, it did sound as though this time she had reason for her alarm. Aunt Edith was a very wealthy woman, and living alone as she did, without benefit of masculine counsel, she presented a ripe target for every confidence trickster within sniffing distance of her fortune. Apparently the most recent of this despicable breed was a woman—the most pernicious of the species, he reflected grimly. To make matters worse, the woman was currently residing with his aunt as her companion.

According to Eleanor, this female adder had so completely ingratiated herself with her employer that Aunt Edith was talking of making a sizeable bequest to her in her will. Steps must be taken, his sister had declared ringingly in her letter, and the threat to the family’s peace of mind dispatched without delay.

For
years the old lady had vigorously denied the need for a companion at all, insisting that she could make do with her Abigail, an admittedly formidable personage named Granditch. In recent years, however, her abilities and, seemingly, her zest for life, had diminished dramatically. She spent too much time alone in her grand town house, sometimes even refusing to come down for dinner. Eleanor had finally made her see that she needed someone in whom she could place more authority for her well-being. Someone who could oversee her domestic arrangements and be trusted to provide her with congenial companionship.

Eleanor had offered to procure such an individual, but when Aunt Edith insisted on her own choice, an impoverished gentlewoman recommended by an old friend, March had irritatedly called his sister off. “You’re making a great deal of botheration over nothing, El,” he had written hurriedly. “If she wants this spinster, let her have her way.”

That seemed to be the story of his life, March mused bitterly. He had apparently been blessed with a knack for being absent when his family needed him most, and now he was reaping the consequences.

At least this time he was on hand to deal with the situation before any serious damage was done. He turned off the London Road into Guinea Lane and then into the street leading toward his aunt’s residence. He should have things under control in short order, and by the end of the week the adventuress would be on her way. He only hoped that her demands would not be exorbitant, though, he admitted to himself, he was prepared to part with whatever it would take to get rid of her. He’d a great deal rather see that she was tarred and feathered. At any rate, he was determined that his family would not again fall prey to a scheming harpy.

God, he wondered, would he ever discover the identity of that other? The one whose greed had cause his family such grief? It was an incantation he had repeated many times in the last several years.

Sunk in his own thoughts, the earl negotiated the long curve of Cottles Lane before swinging down Rivers Street, where he was struck suddenly by a glimmer of light in his gloomy fog. Well, two spots actually. He looked forward to his visit with his aunt, for she was the favorite among his older relatives. And then there was Meg or, Margaret, as she was more properly known, his young sister. Meggie was about to be decanted from the select seminary for young ladies in Bath she’d been attending for the last few years and would be in residence with Lady Edith for some weeks before setting out for Eleanor’s home to make preparations for her first Season.

The earl smiled. A week in Meggie’s company would be just recompense for the unpleasant task that lay before him, for she was flighty, volatile, and utterly lovable. Thus, it was with more anticipation than he would have believed possible a few moments before that he swung finally into the breezy expanse of Royal Crescent. Putting a hand to his curly-brimmed beaver hat to prevent its being taken by the wind that swirled about him in fierce eddies, he perused the sweep of town houses before him, often called the most elegant in Europe.

Moving briskly toward the one among them that belonged to his aunt, he was brought up short as his outside horse reared unexpectedly, throwing the beast’s four-footed partner into some confusion. Having with little difficulty subdued the team, the earl immediately discerned the cause of the momentary upheaval. A small dog had scampered into the street from the park side of the Crescent, apparently under the impression that the horses had been placed in the street for his express amusement, and was now barking vociferously at finding himself surrounded by large, hooved feet.

“Honey! Honey, come back this instant!” Lord Marchford glanced up to see a young woman run into the street after the dog, directly into the path of the curricle. She was tall and plainly dressed and seemed oblivious of the peril she courted as she scooped the little dog into her arms.

Cursing, the earl wrenched on the reins once more and flung them into the hands of a startled Toby. He leapt into the street and, grasping the young woman, drew her urgently away from the curricle.

“Have you no sense?” snapped the earl. “You could have got yourself killed—or maimed the horses!”

“I’m sorry,” she gasped. “I—I didn’t realize ...”

“Obviously.” He released her and stepped back for a brief appraisal. She was not precisely a dowd. Her serviceable ensemble of dove gray merino was not in the first stare of fashion, but was of an elegant design. Her features, except for a glimpse of white skin and a slice of dark hair, were hidden by a bonnet of truly profound grayness, so that altogether he thought he had never beheld such a totally colorless individual. As he pulled her away from the still skittish horses, he half expected her to dissolve in his arms like a column of smoke.

“I do apologize, sir,” she said softly, her eyes cast down in becoming modesty at the spaniel squirming in her arms. “Honey is as charming as she can hold together, but she hasn’t an ounce of sense, and I thought she was about to be crushed.”

Her tone was lamentably lacking in anything resembling an apology, and the earl bristled. “If we are to talk of a lack of sense, madam—” he began, but the woman had already bent her attention to the little dog, murmuring a gentle scold.

Observing that they stood almost in front of his aunt’s house, he issued a curt order to Toby to bring the curricle around to the stables and followed the woman to the sidewalk. Turning once more, she glanced up at him.

“You have every right to be annoyed, sir,” she said with a soothing smile that reminded him of those bestowed on him long ago by his nanny when he was being particularly bad-tempered. “But no harm was done, after all.”

A suitable retort died on his lips as he observed in some surprise that the young woman had begun to ascend the same steps to which he himself had just set his foot. She was unaccompanied and was neither of an age nor, he thought, of the social status to be paying a social call on Lady Edith Brent.

“Are you here to visit Lady Edith?” he asked in some puzzlement.

“No,” she answered with another serene smile. “I live here. I am Lady Edith’s companion. My name is Alison Fox. And you, sir, are ... ?”

Lord Marchford stiffened. My God, was this gray nonentity the dangerous predator he had come to vanquish?

“Anthony Brent, the Earl of Marchford,” he said sharply. The woman’s pale cheeks had been faintly tinged with pink, brought about by the brisk weather and her exertions, and he watched with some satisfaction as the color drained from her face. She clutched at the wrought-iron railing surrounding the shallow flight of stairs that led to the doorway of the house, and for a moment he thought she was going to faint.

After a moment, however, she drew a deep breath, and straightened her shoulders before speaking again.

“I—” she began. “That is, I have heard Lady Edith speak of you often, my lord. I did not realize she was expecting you.”

They had by now reached the front door, and Miss Fox swung about to open it. The earl allowed her to precede him into the house.

“My visit was unplanned,” he replied smoothly, his eyes seeking hers in open irony. “I trust my coming is not inconvenient?”

Miss Fox put a slender hand to her throat. “Of course not,” she said in a low voice. “I know your aunt will be delighted to—”

“March!” The word was spoken in warm feminine tones, and the earl turned to see a slight figure approaching him from the floor above. A crown of snowy white hair proclaimed her advanced years, but her step was sprightly as she hurried down the stairs, and her carriage was graceful. “March, dearest! Why did you not send to us that you were coming?”

Lady Edith Brent flew into her nephew’s arms and her fragile laughter rang out as she was quite lifted from her feet in his embrace.

He released her gently and stepped back to look at her in some amazement. Why, she looked ten years younger than the last time he had seen her. She had gained a little weight, and her eyes fairly sparkled with vivacity. Was it the little nonentity who had wrought such a change? The little adventuress?

“I thought to surprise you, Aunt,” he replied, returning her laughter.

“Wretch,” Lady Edith scolded gently. “You would be well served if you had come and found us elsewhere. We have become great gadabouts, you know. Oh”—she suddenly bethought herself—”but you have not yet met Alison—Miss Fox.” She turned to the young woman. “My dear, come meet my scapegrace nephew.”

The smiled dropped from the earl’s lips as he bent a grim nod on Miss Fox. Her gaze dropped before his, and the hand she offered was icy. “We have met. Aunt. We, er, encountered each other outside.”

Miss Fox paused in the act of removing her pelisse and for the first time lifted her eyes to look directly at the earl. He almost gasped aloud as he was pierced by a gaze from eyes that were an astonishing, electric blue. The air around him seemed unaccountably heated, as though warmed by a boundless tropical sky. He stood transfixed for a long moment, frozen in bemusement, watching as she lifted her bonnet to reveal a thick mane of lustrous black hair. How could he have thought her colorless?

“Outside?” Lady Edith queried, “Oh dear, don’t tell me, Alison, that you’ve been out with Honey. I’ve told you many times to leave that chore to one of the footmen. She is such a naughty little dog, after all.”

Miss Fox’s lips curved in a rigid smile that was not reflected in those startling eyes.

“The—the park across the street is quite secure, my lady. It is fenced in so that Honey cannot escape.”

Her voice, noted the earl, was quiet and melodious, and, if he was not mistaken, contained the veriest touch of panic. Had she anticipated the advent of one of Aunt Edith’s relatives—a spoke at the ready to be thrust into her grand plans?

“Do let us go in and sit down, then.” Lady Edith shepherded her nephew out of the entrance hall and into a large, pleasant chamber. Miss Fox hung back, looking flushed and uncomfortable.

“Please excuse me, my lady,” she said, backing away. “You and his lordship will wish to be…”